A system for distributing video content is typically maintained by a service provider, which can be, for example, a television service provider (e.g., a national or local television network), a cable television service provider or multiple system operator (MSO), an Internet service provider, a satellite broadcast system service provider, or other suitable service provider.
High definition (HD) video content is becoming increasingly prevalent. In a conventional system, HD content and standard definition (SD) content can be streamed to media players/servers, such as a set-top box (STB), which may include personal video recorder (PVR) or digital video recorder (DVR) functionality.
Conventional PVR/DVR-enabled devices are able to store the streamed content, e.g., by recording the streamed content to a local disk or other persistent storage within or connected to the STB. Such PVR/DVR-enabled devices are limited by their local storage capacity; and if streamed content is HD, then the disk space requirement can be critical, as HD content requires more disk space than SD content.
PVR/DVR-enabled devices can be connected in a network, such as a multi-room DVR (MR-DVR) implementation. For example, in an illustrative MR-DVR implementation, a media server, such as a Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA) enabled DVR set-top box, can deliver DVR content to other MoCA-enabled client set-top boxes in other rooms throughout a home.
If more than one PVR/DVR-enabled device wants to record the same content, then each one of those devices may create a copy of the same content in its local storage. This creates redundancy in a network, such as a MR-DVR implementation, where content can be shared between connected devices.